History

My papers:

• Paper 1 Modern European History 1789–1939
• Paper 3 International History 1945–91

Now, if you look through the syllabus you'll find that each paper has six essay question themes, plus one theme for the MANDATORY source-based question. I would strongly advise you to go through the whole course before choosing FOUR (at the very least) topics to focus on in-depth. I only narrowed in on my four-five topics a couple of weeks before exams, but you should probably decide on your four plus the source question a couple of months before exams. That way you have at least something to fall back on if you get some really unexpected questions. For paper 3, since there's a limitation on doing questions 2 and 3, I would suggest you do five themes in-depth, with 3 extra in-depth. I do have at least a few resources for every theme, but I had trouble finding resources for a couple of themes.

Themes I focused on:
Paper one

• French Revolution + Napoleon (slightly difficult, but I found a whole lot of material on it, and ended up doing it in the exam as well. The questions are pretty straightforward)
• Nationalism (make sure you know the effects of things like the french revolution, industrial revolution, political trends, etc. on nationalism)
• Russian Revolution (make sure you know the causes, both long term and short term of 1905, the Feb revolution and Oct revolution)
• The interwar years/totalitarianism (very, very interesting topic, I'd recommend going for this one)

Paper three

• Origins of Cold War (you should definitely do this one, you can write a generic essay from one particular viewpoint of your liking--postrevisionist, revisionist, traditional--that covers the events and implications thereof. The questions are straightforward.)
• Globalization of Cold War (question 2 can be slightly tricky, but question 3 is generally easier, at least for me. You really, really should do this topic.)
• Communism in Crisis/End of Cold War (this is trickier than the other two, but you can write a generic essay on each of the three major subtopics--the crisis and its resolution in China, the reasons for collapse of USSR--you can pretty much use the same material for the end of cold war essay--and why USSR collapsed and China didn't. I prefer doing this topic because it's in continuation of the earlier two and you'll find more information on it)
• Nuclear arms race (this is a very good, fairly simple topic to do. Generic essays on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, causes and effects of the arms race, and the defense strategies would be really useful)
• International Economy (this can be hard to understand if you don't know anything about economics, but if you do a couple of subtopics alone, that would help give you a bit of back-up too)

RESOURCES:

Paper 1 (Tags: European History; history)

Source Question: Causes of World War I


Theme One: French Revolution and Napoleon


Theme Two: Industrial Revolution

Theme Three: Nationalism









Theme Four: New Imperialism

Theme Five: Russian Revolution



Theme Six: Twentieth Century Totalitarian States/Interwar Period